Alternating Currents (5 page)

Whatever it was that was going on in the other room, it was going on loudly. Tempers were always short when Arcturans were around, because the smell, of course, put everybody on edge. People don’t like bad smells. They’re not nice. They remind us of sweat and excrement, which we have buttressed our lives against admitting as real, personal facts. Then there was a loud military yell for order - I recognized the colonel, Peyroles - and then a voice that sounded queerly not-quite-human, although it spoke in English. An Arcturan? What was his name, Knafti? But I had understood they couldn’t make human sounds.

Whoever it was, he put an end to the meeting. The door opened.

Through it I could see a couple of dozen hostile backs, leaving through another door, and coming towards me the Space Force colonel, a very young man with a pale, angel’s face and a dragging limp, in civilian clothes ... and, yes, the Arcturan. It was the first one I had ever been with at so close range, in so small a group. He wobbled towards me on four or six of his coat-hanger limbs, breathing-thorax encased in a golden shell, his mantis face and bright black eyes staring at me.

Peyroles closed the door behind them.

He turned to me and said, ‘Mr Gunnarsen ... Knafti ... Timmy Brown.’

I hadn’t the ghost of a clue whether to offer to shake, and if so, with what. Knafti however merely regarded me gravely. The boy nodded. I said: ‘I’m glad to meet you, gentlemen. As you perhaps know, I tried to set up an appointment before but your people turned me down. I take it now the shoe is on the other foot.’

Colonel Peyroles frowned towards the door he had just shut - there were still noises behind it - but said to me, ‘You’re quite right. That was a meeting of a civic leaders’ committee—’ The door interrupted him by opening, and a man leaned through and yelled: ‘Peyroles! Can that thing understand white man’s talk? I hope so. I hope it hears me when I say that I’m going to make it my personal business to take it apart if it’s still in Belport this time tomorrow. And if any human being, or so-called human being like you, gets in the way, I’ll take him apart too!’ He slammed the door without waiting for an answer.

‘You see?’ said Peyroles gruffly, angrily. Things like that would never have happened with well-tempered troops. ‘That’s what we want to talk to you about.’

‘I see,’ I said, and I did see, very clearly, because that fellow who had leaned through the door had been the Arcturan-property-sale standard bearer we had counted on, old - what had Connick called him? - old Slits-and-Fits Schlitz, the man we were attempting to elect to get our proposition through.

~ * ~

Judging by the amount of noise I’d heard from the citizens’ delegation, there was lynch in the atmosphere. I could understand why they would reverse themselves and ask for me, before things got totally out of control and wound up in murder, if you call killing an Arcturan murder—

- although, it occurred to me, lynching Knafti might not be the worst thing that could happen; public sentiment might bounce back—

I shoved that thought out of my mind and got down to business. ‘What exactly?’ I asked. ‘I gather you want me to do something about your image.’

Knafti sat himself down, if that’s what Arcturans do, on an entwining-rack. The pale boy whispered something to him, then came to me. ‘Mr Gunnar
sen
,’ he said, ‘I am Knaf
ti
’.’ He spoke with a great precision of vowels and a stress at the end of each sentence, as though he had learned English out of a handbook. I had no trouble in understanding him. At least, not in understanding what it was he said. It did take me a moment to comprehend what he meant; and then Peyroles had to help.

‘He means at this moment he’s speaking for Knafti,’ said the colonel. ‘Interpreter. See?’

The boy moved his lips for a moment - shifting gears, it seemed - and said, ‘That is right, I am Timmy
Brown. Knafti’s
translator and
assistant.’

‘Then ask Knafti what he wants from me,’ I tried to say it the way he had - a sort of sneeze for the ‘K’ and an indescribable whistle for the ‘F.’

Timmy Brown moved his lips again and said, ‘I, Knafti, wish you to stop ... to leave ... to discontinue your operation in
Belport.’

From the twining-tree, the Arcturan waved his ropy limbs and chittered like a squirrel. The boy chirped back and said: ‘I, Knafti, commend you on your effective work, but stop
it.’

‘By which,’ rumbled Colonel Peyroles, ‘he means knock it off.’

‘Go fight a space war, Peyroles. Timmy - I mean, Knafti, this is the job I’m paid to do. The Arcturan Confederacy itself hired us. I take my orders from Arthur S. Bigelow, Jr, and I carry them out whether Knafti likes it or not.’

Chirp and chitter between Knafti and the pale, limping boy. The Arcturan left his twining-tree and moved to the window, looking out into the sky and the copter traffic. Timmy Brown said: ‘It does not matter what your orders may be, I, Knafti, tell you that your work is
harmful.’
He hesitated, mumbling to himself. ‘We do not wish to obtain our base here at the cost of what is true, and -’ he turned imploringly to the Arcturan - ‘and it is apparent you are attempting to change the
truth.’

He chirped at the Arcturan, who took his blind black eyes from the window and came towards us. Arcturans don’t walk, exactly. They drag themselves on the lower part of the thorax. Their limbs are supple and thin, and what are not used for support are used for gestures. Knafti used a number of his now, as he chirped one short series of sounds at the boy.

‘- Otherwise,’ Timmy Brown finished off, ‘I, Knafti, tell you we will have to fight this war over
again.’

~ * ~

As soon as I was back in my room I messaged Chicago for orders and clarification and got back the answer I expected:
Hold everything. Referring matter to ASB-jr. Await instructions.

So I awaited. The way I awaited was to call Candace at the office and get the latest sitrep. I told her about the near-riot in the Truce Team’s suite and asked her what it was all about. She shook her head. ‘We have their appointments schedule, Gunner. It just says “Meeting with civic leaders.” But one of the leaders has a secretary who goes to lunch with a girl from Records & Accounting here and—’

‘And you’ll find out. All right, do that, and now what’s the current picture?’

She began reading off briefing digests and field reports. They were mixed, but not altogether bad. Opinion sampling showed a small rise in favourability towards the Arcturans, in fact. It wasn’t much, but it was the first plus change I had seen, and doubly puzzling because of Knafti’s attitude and the brawl with the civic leaders. I asked, ‘Why, honey?’

Candace’s face in the screen was as puzzled as mine. ‘We’re still digging.’

‘All right. Go on.’

There were more pauses. The Flower Fair had yielded surprisingly big profits in attitudes - among those who attended. Of course, they were only a tiny fraction of the population of Belport. The Arcats were showing a plus for us, too. Where we were down was in PTA meeting resolutions, in resignations from Candace’s Arcturan-American Friendship League, in poor attendance at neighbourhood coffee-klatsches.

Now that I knew what to look for, I could see what the Children had done to us. In every family-situation sampling, the attitudes were measurably worse than when the subjects were interviewed in a non-family environment - at work, stopped on the street, in a theatre.

The importance of that was just what I had told Connick. No man is a simple entity. He behaves one way when his self-image is as head of a family, another when he is at a cocktail party, another at work, another still when a pretty girl sits down beside him on a commutercopter. Elementary truths. But it had taken the M/R boys half a century to learn how to use them.

In this case the use was clear: Play down family elements, play up play. I ordered more floats, torchlight parades and a teenage beauty contest. I cancelled the fourteen picnic rallies we had planned and ordered a hold on the coffee-klatsches.

I was not exactly obeying Chicago’s orders. But it didn’t matter. All this could be cancelled with a single word, and anyway it was only nit-picking detail. The One Big Weeny still escaped me.

I lit a cigarette, thought for a minute and said, ‘Honey get me some of the synoptic extracts of opinion-sampling from heads of families and particularly families containing some of the Children. I don’t want the integration or analysis. Just the raw interviews but with the scutwork left out.’

And as soon as she was off the line the Chicago circuit came in with a message they’d been holding:

Query from ASB-jr. Provided top is taken off budget and your hand is freed, can you guarantee, repeat guarantee, win on referendum question?

It was not the response I had expected from them.

Still, it was a legitimate question. I took a moment to think it over.

Junior Bigelow had already given me a pretty free hand -as he always did; how else can a troubleshooter work? If he was now emphasizing that my hand was freed entirely, it would not be because he thought I hadn’t understood him in the first place. Nor would it be because he suspected I might be cheese-paring secretarial salaries. He meant one thing: Win, no matter what.

Under those conditions, could I do it?

Well, of course I could win. Yes. Provided I found the One Big Weeny. You can always win an election, any election anywhere, provided you are willing to pay the right price.

It was finding the price to pay that was hard. Not just money. Sometimes the price you pay is a human being, in the role for which I had been lining up Connick. Throw a human sacrifice to the gods and your prayer is granted...

But was Connick the sacrifice the gods wanted? Would it help to defeat him, bearing in mind that his opponent was one of the men who had been screaming at Knafti in the Truce Team suite? And if so - had my knife enough edge to drain his blood?

Well, it always had had before. And if Connick wasn’t the right man, I would find the man who was. I messaged back, short and sweet,
Yes.

And in less than a minute, as though Junior had been standing by at the faxtape receiver, waiting for the word from me - and perhaps he had! - his reply came back:

Gunner, we’ve lost the Arcturan Confederacy account. Arc Con liaison man says all bets are off. They’re giving notice of cancellation our contract, suggestion they will cancel entire armistice treaty too. I don’t have to tell you we need them. Some possibility that showing strong results in Belport will get them back. That’s what we have to play for. No holds barred, Gunner, win that election.

The office circuit chimed then. Probably it was Candace, but I didn’t want to talk to her just then. I turned all the communication circuits to ‘hold’, stripped down, climbed into the shower, set it for full needle spray and let the water beat on me. It was not an aid to thought, it was a replacement for thought.

I didn’t want to think any more. I wanted time out.

I did not want to think about (a) whether the war would break out again, and, if so, in what degree I would have helped to bring that about; (b) what I was doing to Nice Guy Connick; (c) whether It Was All Worth It or (d) how much I was going to dislike myself that coming Christmas day. I only wanted to let the hot splash of scented water anaesthetize me. When my skin began to look pale and wrinkly, although I had not come to any conclusions or found any solutions, I came out, dressed, opened the communications circuits and let them all begin blinking, ringing, and winking at once.

I took Candace first. She said, ‘Gunner! Dear lord, have you heard about the Armistice Commission? They’ve just released a statement—’

‘I heard. What else, honey?’

Good girl, she shifted gears without missing a beat, ‘Then there was that meeting of civic leaders in the Truce Team suite—’

‘I saw. Feedback from the Armistice Commission’s statement. What else?’

She glanced at the papers in her hand, hesitated, then said: ‘Nothing important. Uh, Gunner. That 3-V preempt for tonight—’

‘Yeah, honey?’

‘Do you want me to cancel it?’

I said, ‘No. You’re right, we won’t use the time for the Arcturan-American Friendship League or whatever we had scheduled, but you’re wrong, we’ll use the time some way. I don’t know how right now.’

‘But Junior said—’

‘Honey,’ I told her, ‘Junior says all sorts of things. Anybody looking to scalp me?’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘there’s Mr Connick. I didn’t think you’d want to see him.’

‘No, I’ll see him. I’ll see anybody.’

‘Anybody?’ I had surprised her. She dived into her list again. ‘There’s somebody from the Truce Team—’

‘Make it everybody from the Truce Team.’

‘- and Commander Whitling from—’

‘From the hospital. Sure, and tell him to bring some kids.’

‘- and ...’ She stalled off and looked at me. ‘Gunner, are you putting me on? You don’t really want to see all these people.
⁵

I smiled and reached out and patted the viewphone. From her point of view it would look like an enormous cloudy hand closing in on her screen, but she would know what I meant. I said, ‘You could not be more wrong. I do. I want to see them all, the more the better, and the way I’d like to see them best is in my office, all at once. So set it up, honey, because I’ll be busy between now and then.’